


Perfect

by Xalts



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for The Answer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 00:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5647639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xalts/pseuds/Xalts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is a Pearl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect

She never realised there was a difference between simply existing and  _ living _ .

She has always just  _ been _ . She comes when called, stands and looks pretty. She poses when asked. She carries things. She is an ornament, a commodity, a Pearl. And she isn’t just any Pearl; she belongs to a member of the Diamond Authority, which means she has to be the  _ perfect _ Pearl.

She is quiet. She is poised and graceful. She is flawless.

She is not allowed to be anything but that. Blue Diamond demands perfection. Perfection in her Pearl, perfection in her court and perfection in her agents.

The rebels attack.

Everything seems to be happening at once. She is jostled as people run past, knocking her from her perfect position, but that’s the least of her worries.

One of those rebels is a Pearl. Like her, and yet… not like her at all.

That Pearl is strong and powerful, and fights at her master’s side. She is poised and graceful, but anything but quiet. And she is  _ beautiful _ in her rebellion. She wields weapons. She attacks gems higher in status than herself. It’s disgusting and despicable and so, so strangely appealing.

No, she tells herself. She can’t think that way. It’s not right. It’s not a  _ Pearl _ way of thinking.

Then the fusion happens.

All around her are horrified gasps and cries as a lowly Ruby fuses with Blue Diamond’s ambassador to the rebels, the noble and dignified Sapphire, and in the presence of the rebel gems too. It’s a shameless display, a mess of their traits thrown together with no thought. It’s ugly and wrong. But she notices something strange.

It’s happy. The fusion, the wrong thing, the mess, is happy.

She wonders why.

She’s just an observer as the two unfuse and escape, along with the rebels, but cogs are in motion within her mind. Blue Diamond returns to her post, and she to her side, and she stands, looking pretty, as she is meant to. But deep in the depths of her brain, something has been awakened.

As she poses, one arms stretched before her, she imagines a sword in that hand, swishing through the air.

As she sits demurely at her Diamond’s side, she thinks about the fusion and wonders how it would feel.

As she carries her master’s precious belongings, she wonders what would happen if she were to throw them down and ask to be treated the same as Blue Diamond, the same way that other Pearl acted towards Rose Quartz.

But she knows her place, and she fears punishment. She knows there is nothing she can do to escape her role. No reason for her to desire anything other than what she was grown for.

When she is sure her face will not betray her thoughts, she imagines the rebels returning, and her joining them, and bringing down her Diamond together. When she is alone and dares to, she imagines fusing, perhaps with that renegade Pearl, perhaps with Blue Diamond herself, and what it would feel like, and how they would look, and what they could do together. But still she does nothing.

She is Blue Diamond’s Pearl. She must be perfect. She must be poised and graceful and flawless. To be any other way would be her destruction.

She exists, but she knows better than to  _ live _ . 


End file.
